Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie and maybe I should re-watch  it at some point. First of all, for Jodie Foster, this movie was a huge milestone. Indeed, even though she had some success as a child actor, she struggled during most of the 80’s and it is finally with this movie that she started to be taken seriously as an adult actor. Eventually, she would even win her 1^st Academy Award and would win another one only a few years later with ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ securing her A list status for good. Concerning the movie itself, it was pretty good and Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis were both solid but, somehow, the whole thing didn’t completely convince me. Indeed, in my opinion, it was far from being really subtle (in fact, Jodie Foster thought at first that her performance was awfulf and that it would be the end of her career) and, even if the message given was important, it wasn’t enough to make this movie really spellbinding in my opinion. To conclude, even though I don’t think it was really a masterpiece, it was still a solid drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Jodie Foster’s work. 

I already saw this movie, in fact, I even saw it in the movie theater when it was released, but, since it was a while back and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out again. First of all, even though, by now, I have managed to watch most of the movies directed by Mike Leigh, even though I admire his work, I have actually never been a huge fan. On the other hand, I did watch again 'Secrets & Lies' not so long ago and I do have to admit that the damned thing was actually quite brilliant and completely deserves its stellar reputation after all. However, with this movie, it did hit me right away though, even the first time around. The funny thing is that, the damned thing pretty much looked like a typical Mike Leigh feature as it was taking place  in a very grim and realistic social environment in England. In fact, it might be Mike Leigh's bleakest movie so far (On the other hand, 'Naked' might be even more hardcore but I haven't seen it in a very long time). Anyway, even  though the whole thing was quite heartbreaking, it was also spellbinding to watch and I was really fascinated by all these characters. I thought that Timothy Spall was also really strong in this movie but the whole cast did a great job. While rewatching this movie, I was also quite surprised to see some very young James Corden and Sally Hawkins both at the beginning of their respective careers. I was especially amazed by Corden who pretty much gave here his best performance ever. Anyway, to conclude, I really loved the damned thing and I think it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in Mike Leigh’s work. 

This was already the 3^rd Dutch movie I saw this week and, out of the 3, the one I enjoyed the most. First of all, it was the first directing effort for Mike [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]van Diem, 18 long years after [Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see][Link removed - login to see]for which he managed to win the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film. Well, to be honest, even though this new directing effort was a decent watch, I can’t say it really blow me away though and it was definitely a massive step-down compared to ‘Karakter’. I mean, the whole thing definitely had some potential but it was a really tricky thing to make a romantic comedy about 2 suicidal people. If done properly, it could have been really great but van Diem should instead a whimsical approach and I’m afraid it never really worked. It’s like the casting of Jeroen van Koningsbrugge. On one hand, he gave a decent performance but I’m not sure if it was the best idea to make this character some kind of Forrest Gump figure. Still, the concept was really intriguing and, at least, they did try to deliver something original which is something really rare with a Dutch production.  To conclude, even though it didn’t completely work, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Dutch movies.

To be honest, I didn’t expect much from this flick but since my wife has a weak spot for such Dutch romantic comedies, I thought we might as well check it out together. Well, even though my wife thought it was a decent watch, I thought it was in fact seriously underwhelming. I mean, is it me or are the  Dutch romantic comedies actually getting worse and worse? Or maybe I have seen too many of them by now. Anyway, this time around, the whole thing was really so lazy and the concept was just really lame. I mean, they gave us a young and hunky Santa Man to compete with Sinterklaas (some kind of local version of Santa Claus)? Seriously? At least, it was pretty neat to see this black American guy getting offended after watching Sinterklaar and his Zwarte Pieten. However, even this scene was actually messed up by the fact that the guy was verbally too offensive which was really inappropriate. At least, Chantal Janzen was cute as usual but her romance with the character played by Benja Bruijning felt forced and I don’t think they had much chemistry. Anyway, to conclude, I thought the damned thing was pretty weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look, except if you are really a die-hard fan of the genre.  

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this movie. Still, I remember it very well. Indeed, after watching ‘Bad Lieutenant’ back in the 90’s, I became a huge fan of Abel Ferrara’s work and this movie was therefore definitely a high priority for me. Well, even though it turned out to be watchable, I have to admit that I had a rather hard time to really connect with the damned thing. I mean, it was not bad, it was even pretty neat that Ferrara would go for a vampire tale and there was a really nice cast involved (Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco). Unfortunately, the whole thing was terribly murky and I have to admit that I didn't care much for the characters and what they were going through. Actually, from this point on, except for the amazing ‘The Funeral’ which would be Ferrara’s following directing effort, all his following movies would be increasingly obscure and difficult to follow and, as a result, nowadays, nobody seems to really care for this director anymore which is too bad. Anyway, to conclude, even though it didn’t really fulfill my expectations, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Abel Ferrara’s work. 

For some reasons, I have actually watched most of the movies directed by François Ozon (14 out of 16) which is rather surprising because I never became a huge fan of his work. For example, even though his directing debut ‘Sitcom’ turned out to be a somewhat cult-classic in France, I thought it was in fact a seriously dreadful feature. This 2nd directing, which I also watched in the movie theater when it was released, turned out to be only slightly better, I’m afraid. I mean, this time around, the concept actually had some potential and the beginning of the movie was actually really good. Indeed, the story was intriguing and the characters were dark and interesting thanks to some decent performances by Natacha Régnier and Jérémie Renier. However, as soon as they got into these woods, the whole thing completely fell apart. I mean, I don’t blame Miki Manojlović, the guy was and still is a fine actor but, from that point, this tale became terribly murky and underwhelming. Furthrmore, something that often bothered me with Ozon’s work is how pretentious it can be and this movie was probably the worst example. Indeed, the whole thing tried to be entertaining, transgressive and artistic but it failed on all levels. To conclude, even though I have seen worse, I thought it was still pretty weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

For many years, I kept hearing from 2 of my favorites Listal members (the giraffe and Xanadon’t) that this movie was some kind of cult-classic so I was really eager to watch the damned thing. Furthermore, I really loved ‘American Splendor’ which was Shari Springer Berman’s  and Robert Pulcini’s directing debut so I had some high hopes. Well, to be honest, even though this movie was not bad at all, I can’t say I was really blown away though. I mean, the relationship between Paul Dano’s and Kevin Kline’s characters really had some potential and the damned thing was sometimes actually quite hilarious but I’m afraid they pushed the quirkiness way too far and it made it for me rather difficult to really care for these characters. For example, was it really a good idea to make Louis Ives a cross-dresser? I mean, I have nothing against a character struggling with the fact that he wants to dress as a woman but, in this movie, they kept adding layers upon layers of quirky stuff and, as a result, I had a hard time to take the whole thing really seriously. At least, it was much better than the terribly underwhelming ‘The Nanny Diaries’ from the same directors. Anyway, to conclude, even though it turned out to be slightly disappointing, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.